PITCHING YOUR PROJECT

PITCHING IS CRUCIAL

» get past your reservations about the salesmanship part of pitching

» learn how to use your enthusiasm for your work to manipulate the room and get what you want

• People give money to people, not ideas…

» It is never just about telling the story.

» A pitch is a brief and impassioned performance.

» Rehearse your pitch in front of a mirror or to a friend. Don’t rehearse it to death.

» Remember, the emotional experience you want to create for the audience is a great thing to consider while honing your pitch.

• Body language

• Set up of the room

• Remember, they need you as much as you need them!

TAILOR YOUR PITCH TO THE ROOM

» If you’re pitching an actor, you will emphasize character traits and actions that make that character especially compelling.

» The more prepared you are, the more easily you’ll weather the interruptions, suggestions and questions that are part of the process of pitching

• Try not to be nervous

» A great pitch also involves paying attention to the non-verbal clues.

» Without being creepy or getting yourself distracted, watch their eyes. Are they with you?

GENERALLY, PITCHES COME IN THREE LENGTHS:

SMALL = the teaser pitch (three sentences or less)MEDIUM = the 2 minute

short pitchLARGE = the full-on pitch,

10 minutes (or longer)

YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE A PUNCHY TEASER PITCH.

» You never know when you'll be called upon to sell your story or how you'll be asked to sell it.

THE TEASER PITCHThis is like writing haiku.

You have no more than 3 sentences to convey:

» the setting

» the premise

» the genre

» the scope of your film

RECIPE FOR A THREE-SENTENCE TEASER PITCH:

» Set the scene.

» Introduce the characters.

» Illustrate their conflict.

» Leave the listeners wanting more.

THE TWO-MINUTE PITCH

Once you’ve written a teaser pitch, you’ve got the skeleton of a two-minute pitch (and for that matter the full-on ten-minute pitch as well).

» In fact, the same elements (setting the scene, central character, conflict and genre) appear in almost all pitches.

TWO MINUTE PITCH

• One way of looking at movie trailers is to think of them as the two-minute pitch with a $50,000,000 budget.

• “Elevator pitch”

TEN MINUTE PITCH

» Look for a way to make the ten-minute pitch entertaining.

» Always leave them wanting more.

» Telling the executives the climax in great detail is usually not the preferred option. If they ask, tell them they can read the script.

» What would you change in your pitch next time?

» Is the response indicative of a problem with your pitch, or does it run deeper?

» Is there a problem with your script?

Post Mortem

FOR YOUR PITCH NEXT CLASS...

✓Central Organizing Principle – what is the theme of your film?

✓Synopsis and logline

✓Influences for this project – other films, books, music, etc.

✓Production design ideas

✓Casting ideas

✓Assumptions page using template

A LOGLINE IS...

» A one-sentence condensation of the plot that conveys enough information to identify the central character(s), their problem and the genre.

» Note: a logline is not a pitch, it is simply a one-sentence description of a movie’s story, suggesting the genre.

» BLAKE SNYDER, IN HIS INVALUABLE BOOK SAVE THE CAT, POSITS THAT A GOOD LOGLINE MUST INCLUDE FOUR THINGS:

• Irony. It must be in some way ironic and emotionally involving  - a dramatic situation that is like an itch you have to scratch.

• A compelling mental picture. It must bloom in your mind when you hear it. A whole movie must be implied, often including a time frame.

• Audience and cost. It must demarcate the tone, the target audience, and the sense of cost, so buyers will know if it can make a profit.

• A killer title. The one-two punch of a good logline must include a great title, one that “says what it is” and does so in a clever way.

“A young man and woman from different social classes fall in love aboard an ill-fated voyage at sea.”

“ Northern England, 1984. Billy Elliot’s a little boy, the son of a poor local miner, who decides to start training for a career.

In ballet.”

“Jessica Stein has met and refused virtually every man in New York City. At the end of her rope, she decides maybe it's time she looked for a woman.”

“The extraordinary story of a thoroughbred racehorse – from his humble beginnings as an under-fed workhorse to his unlikely rise and triumphant victory over the Triple Crown winner.”

“A throwback to the serial adventure films of the 1930’s, this film is the story of a heroic archeologist who races against the Nazis to find a powerful artifact that can change the course of history.”

• http://www.lifeformz.com/cgi-bin/idea/idea.fcgi

• For Future Pitches, you might include...

TREATMENT

• Brief synopsis that

tells the core of the story

• 4-20 pages in length

• Plot, action, general characters and emotional subplots

• Helps to identify what’s working (and what’s not)

TIMELINE

• Start of preproduction

• Principal photography

• Post production

• Sound mix

BUDGET

CAST AND CREW

• Who will star?

• Who’s shooting your film?

• Production Design?

• Remember - every movie started out as a pitch…

END